Politicians and celebrities are easy to parody; to mock people who are overly concerned with their public image, you tweak or distort the image. It’s harder to parody something that openly and demonstrably does not give a fuck for the damage done.

Today’s entry comes once again courtesy of Nick Rycar, who is looking at the horrific aspects of a classic RPG and its sequel.

Today we’re going to take a look at yet another game with a colorful aesthetic and cheerful characters that make it an odd choice for an article in a series about horror games. Unlike our last go-around, however, this time we’re not going to need any personal anecdotes or surprising revelations to get to the dark implications at its core; this time, the abyss is right there in the story’s text, if we take the opportunity to see it. Since H.G. Wells popularized the concept more than a century ago, time travel has always been a fertile breeding ground for uniquely existential crises, and today’s topic is no exception. Set the Wayback Machine for 1995, and make sure your flux capacitor is in good working order, because we’re about to get wibbly wobbly and timey wimey with Chrono Trigger.

Everyone has a game or game series that makes their skin crawl, be it Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or any number of very easily defined “horror” games. I’m not much for the horror genre. I’ve never really been a fan of scary movies or spooky stories. While I’ve enjoyed the odd horror game, they have never been and will likely never be a staple in my normal gaming routine. There is one exception to this: The Castlevania series.